Michael Dervanlistens to four new releases.
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS - THE COLLECTOR'S EDITION
Various performers
EMI Classics 206 6362 (30 CDs)
****
The 50th anniversary of the death of Ralph Vaughan Williams is the trigger for this specially priced, 30-disc "collector's edition". Williams embraced English folk music, the vocal polyphony of the 16th century, and occasionally ventured into modes of asperity that will still surprise listeners who love him for what's been called the "stained-glass beauty" of the Tallis Fantasiaand the many works in pastoral vein.
This set surveys all areas of his output (his operas include one on Synge's Riders to the Sea), and the curious will enjoy the oddities (a concerto each for harmonica and tuba), as well as the harsh Fourth Symphonyfrom the late 1930s and a strikingly modern Piano Concerto. The great and the good of a half century of British musical life feature among the performers.
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MICHAEL DERVAN
JANET BAKER, THE BELOVED MEZZO
Janet Baker (mezzo soprano)
EMI Classics 208 0872 (5 CDs)
*****
This five-disc set, from EMI's new Icons series, stands as a valuable foil to the set of Philips and Decca recordings issued for Janet Baker's 70th birthday five years ago. There the focus was mainly on the baroque. Here it is firmly romantic, encompassing major orchestral song cycles by Mahler, Wagner, Elgar and Berlioz, and extending to Richard Strauss, Ravel and Chausson.
There are also piano- accompanied songs by Schubert, Schumann and Mendelssohn, and excerpts from oratorios. At its best, Baker's art was entrancing, effortlessly natural in production, lovely in sound, and touching in a way that made it seem to go from heart to heart. This set, which includes some of her finest work, comes with a typically perceptive introductory essay by John Steane.
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MICHAEL DERVAN
ROMANTIC RESIDUES
James Gilchrist (tenor), Jaime Martin (flute), Alison Nicholls (harp)
Hyperion CDA 67725
****
This disc is dominated by Brittenesque harp-writing, though the four folk-song arrangements by Britten himself - little miracles of suggestiveness - include borrowings from ones with piano accompaniment. Alec Roth's Vikram Seth settings From Californiaand Romantic Residuesemulate Britten's easy way with words and Roth finds moments of shading and emphasis that nicely sidestep expectations.
Howard Skempton's Three Songs for Jenniewelds words and music with a strange combination of directness and impenetrability. James Gilchrist's clear, flexible tenor is also effective in a selection of songs by French composers Ravel (the Cinq mélodies populaires grecques), Caplet, Saint-Saëns and Tournier.
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MICHAEL DERVAN
A PALE YELLOW SKY
Clíona Doris (harp)
RTÉ lyric fm CD 115
***
The concert harp is both attractive and intimidating for composers.
On the one hand are the unique colours, on the other the limitations and technical complications of the pedal system. This selection of works written for Clíona Doris includes the plain (Deirdre McKay's a pale yellow sky, simply too thin for my liking, and Neil Martin's downright gauche Soundings), and works which stay within familiar conventions (John Buckley's endless the whiteclouds and Philip Hammond's A question about angels). Jason E Geistweidt's meditation, meditation, meditationand Michael Alcorn's Psalloboth usefully introduce an electronic element, Geistweidt feeding back from the live performer and Alcorn also adding vocalisations.
One can easily imagine concert audiences being thoroughly intrigued by the procedures involved.
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MICHAEL DERVAN
